Does this bike has footpegs for a second passenger?
Does it have a rear rack?
What my passenger will weigh and what sink I 'll be carring must be the choice of the guy who is paying for the bike. Not some kid with no idea about bikes in a Husqvarna office.

No easy preload adjustment option is a bad choice made either because they tried to keep it cheap, or because they had no place to put it through.

Anyway the more I read about the bike the more I agree with Joy from friends: "Italian craftmanship" and design

Does this bike has footpegs for a second passenger?
Does it have a rear rack?
What my passenger will weigh and what sink I 'll be carring must be the choice of the guy who is paying for the bike. Not some kid with no idea about bikes in a Husqvarna office.

No easy preload adjustment option is a bad choice made either because they tried to keep it cheap, or because they had no place to put it through.

Anyway the more I read about the bike the more I agree with Joy from friends: "Italian craftmanship" and design

Heck yeah it's cheap.....$6,800 OTD!

Don't be fooled by photoshop. Those passenger pegs & rack are just plastic immitations to sneak it past the anti-dirtbike import duties.

My altrider crashbars went on real easy too. No hammer required. Clever fastening method at the lower end. Should be hell for stout.
I found some highway pegs cheap that I'll try on them. It's hard to find some that are not all chrome blinged out.

I took the Strada out for it's first ride. I had great fun. I only went about 40 miles. Looking forward to many more rides.

This thread is busy. I really like the Strada for it's intended use. I've already put over 500 miles on it. I have it's first service scheduled for Tuesday. The tall seat has arrived, but I have not got it on yet. I went on a 225 mile group ride last Saturday. It was 95% pavement. It was fun. I've been riding single track for years, so this is a new experience. The gravel roads would have been more fun on my WR450, but the Strada did fine.

I commuted on it one day, 90 mile round trip. I took all back roads, it made my commute much more fun. A mini adventure ride to work. It did take longer. My commute by car on the highway is about 45 minutes. The route I took on the bike, 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Too bad the Strada and Terra are only one year bikes. I really think it's a great bike. It's big enough for the highway, but really nimble around town. It's forte has to be the state highways and chip & seals.

I'm certain a dirt bike guy from Bolivar knows all about Chadwick. What many of us didn't realize until lately is how much fun can be had on all those 2 lanes and gravel roads in that area. H highway that runs right next to the park, 125 on down into AR, Glade Top Trail......wish I lived where you do.

I'm certain a dirt bike guy from Bolivar knows all about Chadwick. What many of us didn't realize until lately is how much fun can be had on all those 2 lanes and gravel roads in that area. H highway that runs right next to the park, 125 on down into AR, Glade Top Trail......wish I lived where you do.

I used to be a regular Chadwick rat but the forest service got to be too much. I haven't been there in 7 years.

I pulled the Pirelli MT21 front off today and put on a T63. The bike now handles fine.

I have had a lot of luck with MT21's on other bikes, but they don't work on this one.

When I put the Pirelli on the front of mine a few months ago it was nearly dangerous. The bike constantly wanted to weave, and any loose surface caused the front end to slide around. After 1000+ nerve racking miles, the tire has finally wore down properly and handles fine now. I noticed that air pressure had a lot to do with it. 8-11 psi seemed to work fine, but I got several pinch flats from hitting rocks on my commute. So I aired it up to 15-20 and dealt with the wobble.

Front fender disassembly is confusing, so pay attention and learn from my mistake. This is a shot of the underside of the front fender. There are 4 sets of screws. Two different torx sizes, and a phillips. The phillips do not go up front, as in the most forward position on the bike. (Top of the photo) They fit there, but the last two quarter turns will send the through the top of the fender. The phillips go in the second position. Luckily I caught it before it punched a hole, but I do have a nice dimple there now. I just made a dimple to match on the other side and touched up my plasti dip.

To drop the front fender assembly, you only need to undo the bottom 2 screws in this photo, and the 4 bolts not pictured behind them. The bottom 2 screws go through the rear of the fender, the front fender, and into the headlight assembly.

Sent from the voices in my head and transcribed by their drinking buddy...

__________________
Sit Stay Ride: The Story of America's Sidecar Dogs
More info at www.sidecardogs.com

Because the f'ing TR650 shop manual did not include instructions on how to remove the fuel tank and air box. That's why.

This is just a pictorial on how I chose to check the valve clearances @6k miles. This task is not for the faint of heart and is a bit involved.

Begin by putting your bike up on the lift and taking the seat off:
If you don't have a lift, the job is still possible, but harder.

Now that you have your bike in a vulnerable position, you need to assert your dominance. Do not show any fear to this beast or it will realize it can overcome you and take the alpha position in the relationship.

Next remove the panel around the fill cap:

Then proceed to remove the body panels (High Five already did a write-up on this so I'm not going to go into detail. If you can't figure out how to take these off by yourself, stop here. The rest of this will be way over your head):

With the panels now off, begin to tackle the front fairing around the airbox:

Take the air filter out:

Looking inside, you can see a fair amount of dust that eludes the air filter. Not enough to make me lose any sleep, but I know this bike isn't a Toyota, so we'll see what the lasting effects are: